How to Draw Manga (kinda!)

Contest contest

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:36:19 GMT

Hello everyone! I've started an unofficial Death Jr contest over at the gomanga forums. If you love made up contests that offer ridiculous prizes valued less than half a potato, head over HERE and check it out!

Crunch season!

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 07:59:46 GMT

Just got word from Backbone Entertainment last night that they are very pleased with our story and art treatment of the Death Jr., Manga. In fact, they're so pleased that they didn't even ask for any art or text revision at all. Man o man, I'm so glad that all those sleepless nights I went through just to get the final draft out have finally paid off.

Now comes the hard part. Ink 161 pages in less than 30 days. Will I make it? We'll see. :)

I just can't wait to wrap me grubby hands around all those yummy dvds and books and games waiting as a reward when I finish. I've been piling them up as an incentive. Yum yum.... not much longer now my pets. Ah, and I can finally update my frikking comic site too. LOL

For today's journal entry, I'm posting yet again another early study of the manga. Our initial design for DJ had a more "fleshier" arms and hands as depicted in this pic. But Backbone asked us to make DJ wholly a skeleton and that's how he is today. DJ's finalized facial features are also a bit different from the one in this early design.

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 05:11:11 GMT

Hey hey! First post for 2007 and work for Pandora: A Death Jr. manga continues! Revisions on the thumbnails are done and so far I've made over 300 thumbnails (and counting) in the course of this project. The problem when you're both artist and writer for the same book is that you're often tempted to make little tweaks here and there. It's fairly easy to get overboard when you're enjoying the work a little too much as well. I suspect there would be at least 50 pages of sequential art that will be edited out of the story for print but will nonetheless end up as bonus material either online or in another form. But we'll have to wait and see how that develops.

I'm currently on my last leg of pencilling work and would soon be starting the inks. I'm pretty glad I decided not to ink the pages earlier. I realize now that a lot of the first few pages needs to be fixed or redrawn.

So far the book is coming out better than I have expected and I can't wait to get this done. I hope everybody will enjoy this little title when it comes out. I've tried my best to keep this as fun, exciting, and in continuity with the original material as much as possible. But don't let the continuity factor dissuade you at all. Pandora is a self-contained story with everything you need to know (plus all new material exclusive to this version only) so you don't need to have read the comic version to fully enjoy it. But if you want the extra dimension, I highly recommend picking up the trade paperback for Death Jr Vol1 and Vol2 from Image comics. You won't regret it!

Anyway, time for me to get back to work!

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 14:45:23 GMT

I don't know what great evil compelled me to do this :(

Everybody loves pumpkin

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 11:24:11 GMT

Yet another early Pandora sample art study (to be viewed right-to-left). I don't remember the reason why I made this a double page spread though. Anyway, I like how this one flows but I doubt we'll ever use this for anything official. I'll probably refine and polish this just for the fun of it. Maybe.

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 11:09:46 GMT

New Pandora pic I made to replace the thumbnail for the Deathjr Property page back at Gomanga.com.

This one came out better than I expected.

Happy happy

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 15:50:55 GMT

Yay! I was interviewed a few months ago (as well as a bunch of other artists) as part of this feature thingie on newsarama about Filipino comic book artists. The article just went live today so here's the link for those who haven't seen it yet. It's pretty interesting. Read and be educated, ye little podlings.

I'm PISSSSEEDD..... and yet happy....

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 02:16:14 GMT

I can't even begin to say how pissed I am today. Things like this makes me want to throw my hands up in the air and cry out in wonder why I even bother. WHY O WHY?!

But on a more lighter note, I'd like to thank Niko for inviting me over to be part of the Mecha Penguin community art journal. Thinking about it puts a smile on my face for a second or two before that thing that pisses me off snatches that happy thought away.

Regarding Death Jr., pencilling continues further. I hope to be finished with this book before the year ends so I can meet the new year with open arms and an empty wallet. It's great to be me.

Manga vs Komiks?

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:34:07 GMT

This is my thought about the manga vs. komiks debate that's currenty raging -- I like potatoes.